Gods of the Warp
by cambalopales
Summary: The Emperor is eons old. He has seen many civilizations rise and fall. But Greece was one he had witnessed die personally, at the head of a Roman Legion storming the Athenian Acropolis. But here it was, the Athena Parthenos, sitting atop a hill in Rhode Island…


**This is just a quick one shot from me I had after finishing "Blood of Olympus".**

 **So if you read the story before you'll notice that this has changed slightly, for it is now a confirmed one shot. There are several reasons for this, number one is the complaints about the Emperor being underpowered. This is true, however I didn't know how I could write the story without him appearing weaker than the Olympians.**

 **HOWEVER, I have found solution to this, one I never really thought about until I found the REALLY old fluff from like second edition that described the Emperor's history more comprehensively than the rumours we have now (literally all there is that can be considered canon about the emperor prior to the crusade is he was born in Anatolia and he defeated a dragon that may have been the Void Dragon but that's unlikely since the void dragon is the most powerful C'tan ever). So I'm going to use it here, see if you can pick up on what it is.**

The Emperor furrowed his brow. What he saw he couldn't quite comprehend.

He was the essence of the old shamans of earth, nearly 9,000 years ago in Anatolia they had sacrificed themselves to make him, the pinnacle of human perfection and the most powerful psyker to date. He was destined to be the Immortal lord of humanity, to guide them to their destiny across the stars and turn mankind into the dominant species in the galaxy, just as he envisioned, he would be there advisor from the shadows, only stepping in when absolutely necessary.

At least that was the plan.

He had encountered enemies before, of course he had. There had been other leaders, other mortals. Other deities.

Not the Chaos deities, they were still in their infancy, thankfully. They remained too weak to gain a foothold in the human psyche, and were too distracted with the Eldar in any case. But just as the Emperor had preached, the human mind was powerful. It could influence the Warp in ways even he would struggle to do. Religions had shown just that.

That is why he stepped up to the mantle of prophet, across so many civilizations. Why he had created monotheism. Because at least then their worship was less about individual gods and more about the metaphysical idea of God.

Even though he despised it, it had to be that way. He had seen what undirected religion had done, why he had stormed the Acropolis all those years ago.

The Greek Pantheon was one of the larger of the human created warp deities. Many others existed, Egyptian, Mayan, and Norse. But the Greeks were so powerful and so persistent because Rome had taken them as their own.

He had stopped that. He, as Constantine, declared Christianity, another religion dedicated to his previous deeds in another life, the official religion of the Roman Empire. Effectively dooming the pantheon and its warp spawned deities to obscurity. A foot note in history.

Or so he thought.

Here he was, on a hill in the middle of Rhode Island, USA, seeking another role to take to alter humanity's future again. But what stood atop that hill he could not believe.

The Athena Parthenos still radiated the same hate it had when he lead the Legion to take it all those years ago. The same hate when he had locked it beneath the roads of Rome. But, somehow it had made its way back. Somehow, it was still alive.

"Athena" He whispered.

"You called, oh mighty Emperor" a woman strolled up beside him and clasped her hands behind her back. She had blonde hair tied up in a braid behind her back and wore a white toga that radiated a soft glow. She topped this off with a golden hoplite helmet that had the image of an owl inscribed on the front. She was much shorter than the emperor, who was not attempting to hide his super-human build. Her tone was mocking the Emperor, as if proving a point.

"How?" Was all he could manage.

"You tell me, you were there" Athena snarled.

"I locked it away so no one could see it restored. I stopped you from becoming a problem again"

"And why did you do that? You called us Chaos gods back then, do you still believe that?"

The Emperor hesitated. "No, you were objects of human worship, created because of their undying belief. But that belief faded with the divide east and west. And it disappeared with the fall of the Empire" he took a shaky breath "Us?"

Athena smiled "Yes, we are all still here. Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Poseidon, Hera, Zeus, and many others"

"How?" The Emperor repeated.

"Because you forgot something you did back when you raised that acropolis. We are tied to western civilization. Of course we crave worship, but…" She looked over at the hill "Our children fulfilled what we lacked from mortals"

The Emperor swallowed. "Your children?"

Athena's smile grew even wider "Yes, over that hill is an entire camp filled with our children, part-mortal, part-god"

"Oh, oh no" The emperor sat down heavily. The goddess took up a spot opposite him.

"You did not feel it during the revolution? Your first attempt to create your 'society of science and reason'?" She asked. The Emperor thought back to when he lead the Russian people against the autocratic Tsars, and brought down yet another religious theocracy.

"Stalin…" He began.

"A Son of Hades" She finished, and the Emperor knew she was right. The unsettling aura he felt towards the end of his tenure in Russia, a sickness that normally did not befall him. He tried to warn the committee, but they did not heed his warning.

"And the war?"

"Also us" she admitted. "We actually tried to fix that"

The Emperor put his head in his hands. How could he miss it all? For nearly 2,000 years they had co-existed, and he had no idea. But they were well aware, they remained omnipresent.

"How, how often did you do that?" He asked eventually.

"What? Cause World Wars? Only a few times. We tried to stop that by preventing any more 'big three' children" she then frowned "But of course, Poseidon couldn't keep to himself, neither could Zeus"

"How many of them are there?" The Emperor nodded at the hill.

"A few hundred in that camp. Possibly many hundreds in total, taking into account those who have left the camp, those in New Rome and those who still have no idea"

The Emperor still couldn't believe he had missed it this whole time. Those daemons he had fought. Not daemons, _Monsters._ The Gods were not only alive, but they were actively affecting the material realm.

And they still don't think they're warp entities. Maybe that's for the best, though.

The Emperor did not want to think what would happen if the chaos gods became aware of what these gods were doing here.

Athena sat cross legged opposite him, observing his reaction. She would never admit it, but the Emperor terrified her. His reaction could mean the continuation of Western Civilization itself, not to mention their own survival

He was powerful, it would take the entire pantheon to defeat him in battle, and it was hard enough to get them to agree on anything, let alone fight together. She would never admit it though, no Olympian would openly call themselves weak by comparison. He had almost single handily destroyed them before, and would not hesitate to do it again. He could rally the mortals so effectively he rivalled Aphrodite's offspring in charisma. That was his true power, why they feared him more than they feared the tians and giants. He was not of the Olympians realm, and thus could not be defeated and locked in Tartarus like they could.

"So" The Emperor said finally "I suppose you came here to tell me to leave?"

"Well…" Athena considered it for a second "what would happen if you stayed?"

The Emperor thought for a second "I should destroy you. You are Warp spawn, and there are beings of your realm even you are not aware of. Beings that could destroy humanity itself, not just your precious Western Civilization"

"Think of the people you would kill in the process" She tried to reason "Athens and the Hellenic league are one thing, but now the west encompasses over 1 billion people, you would kill them all to destroy us?"

The Emperor faltered, thinking for a second then he sighed "It would indeed be a waste to kill so many innocents. Such an event would cause more trouble than its worth"

"Indeed, how could you lead humanity after what you did to them on this day?"

"That's not what I meant"

"Oh" She paused, trying to figure out what he was talking about. She had a feeling it was these other beings he kept mentioning.

"The borders of this camp are strong" he said after a while, observing the camps magical field through witch sight. It appeared to be putting up a sort of null field, one that prevented Daemons and other lesser warp spawn from entering.

"They are powered by the Golden Fleece, they are impenetrable to monsters" Athena explained.

"I see" The Emperor though for a while "How many gods have cabins there?"

"Around 20, we are building more"

"How many more"

"Quite a fe…" Athena stopped, realising what he was asking "no"

"What" he asked innocently

"We cannot have non-Olympian gods in the camp!"

"You've had Egyptians there before"

"That's different, they didn't ask for shrines dedicated to them!"

"Oh I'm not talking about Shrines, Lady Athena"

Athena turned white.

"My children are vulnerable, they have power they cannot even fathom, if I do not protect them, they could unwittingly destroy life on Earth"

"Then why don't you take them! If you're so powerful make your own camp"

"My job is not to look after my children, just as much as it is not your job to look after yours" He had a point

Athena bit her lip, like she was trying to figure out what to do.

"They others would not like this"

"I'm not asking the others, I'm asking you, the wisest of them all"

Athena considered this. Despite all her wisdom, the Emperor had outsmarted her, he had her in a corner. He may not be stronger than the pantheon physically, but he could battle each and every one of the Olympians at their own game, and win.

She hung her head.

"I'll talk with my daughter, see what we can do"

 **And there you have it, a slight but very significant change to the story.**

 **Like I said this will be a one shot, but I will make another fan-fiction based around what I established here, introduce one of the Emperor's Demigods, which I hope people are a little more open to than my previous idea (which in retrospect was a little silly, even if I still thought it was a cool idea).**

 **Please Review, tell me if you think the new idea is better or worse than before.**

 **This is Commissar Britton signing off.**

 **The Emperor Protects**


End file.
